Le Pellerin Ferry – Le bâteau-mou loop from Saint-Jean-de-Boiseau

Bike touring routes & trails

France

Pays de la Loire

Nantes

Saint-Jean-De-Boiseau

Le Pellerin Ferry – Le bâteau-mou loop from Saint-Jean-de-Boiseau

Easy

3.5

(4)

riders

Le Pellerin Ferry – Le bâteau-mou loop from Saint-Jean-de-Boiseau

01:45

26.8km

110m

Cycling

Easy bike ride. Mostly paved surfaces. The starting point of the route is accessible with public transport.

Last updated: August 27, 2026

Waypoints

Start point

Bus stop

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1.52 km

View of the Couëron Shot Tower

Highlight • Monument

The last tower in France built for the production of hunting pellets, one of the last 15 remaining in the world, the Couëron Lead Tower was classified as a Historic Monument in 1993 as a witness to these once numerous buildings.
The manufacture of hunting lead
Lead towers appeared in France in the 18th century to produce lead or shot. A mixture of lead, arsenic (for malleability) and antimony (for hardness) is prepared in the lower part. The ingots obtained are taken to the casting chamber where the equipment necessary for production is located: boilers for remelting the lead with their hoods, 21 pierced pans stored in a rack, ladles, shovels, buckets, cruets... The fall of the balls over a great height makes it possible to obtain perfectly spherical balls collected in two tanks filled with water placed at the lower level. The pellets produced in Couëron were renowned for their high quality. In the tower as in the rest of the factory, the workers then worked in difficult conditions, due in particular to the harmfulness of lead.
Source: ville-coueron.fr/culture/decouvert-le-patrimoine/la-tour-a-plomb

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4.65 km

Le Pellerin Ferry

Highlight • Ferry

Very nice: The bridges and shuttles to cross the Loire in this region are all free. This runs every 20 minutes from 6:20 a.m., every day, except May 1st.
Find on this page the timetables, webcams and possible disruptions concerning the connection between Couëron and Le Pellerin:
inforoutes.loire-atlantique.fr/44/bacs-de-loire/bac-de-loire-liaison-coueron-le-pellerin/info_60323

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6.02 km

Scenic Path Along the Loire

Highlight • Trail

Nice for a picnic

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7.14 km

Martinière Lock

Highlight • Other

The bike path to here follows, for 15 kilometers, the channel of Martinière (or officially Canal Maritime de la Basse Loire). This canal runs along the south bank of the Loire Estuary, leaving at most 5 to 6 kilometers from the river.
Proposed by engineer Adolphe Radiguel in 1861 to allow transatlantic ships to reach Nantes, the canal is operational in 1892 after 10 years of pharaonic work. Some of the machinery and equipment was previously used for the construction of the Suez Canal.
Three major structures are built for the lock's operating system: the Martinière (in the east), the Carnet (in the west) and the Champs-Neufs half way along the canal. The latter was also equipped with a siphon, allowing a differentiated water regulation between the moats of Vue marshes and those of the canal itself. Two "boat parks" allow large vessels to cross at the "Teignouse" in Pellerin, and between Roche and Carnet Frossay.
The canal has an intense period of activity with the great navigation which lasts 20 years until 1913, with approximately 10,000 passages during these 20 years, then the fluvial watercraft circulates until 1943. It becomes a cemetery of the tall ships between 1921 and 1927. During the Second World War, the Germans occupy it, then the Americans, from 1957 to 1967, will stock NATO material there. The sea canal is closed to navigation in 1959.
In the 1960s, the canal became the hydraulic control tool of the Pays de Retz. Its devastation began in the 1990s, using small dredges. fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_de_la_Martini%C3%A8re

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7.31 km

Le bâteau-mou

Highlight • Monument

At the end of the Martinière canal, in Pellerin, this is the work of Austrian plastic artist Erwin Wurm as part of the Estuary course.

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14.8 km

Tour de Buzay

Highlight • Monument

This impressive tower in the middle of nowhere, in reality an old bell tower, is in fact the last vestige of a very large and rich abbey, destroyed in 1795 by the Vendée armies.
A few meters further, beautiful view from the bridge over the Buzay canal, dug to facilitate navigation between Grand-Lieu and the Loire, and some pretty colorful houses.

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15.8 km

Buzay breakthrough

Highlight • Other

Allows excess water to flow from the marshes to the Loire in winter and, conversely, to replenish the marshes and canals in summer.

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22.2 km

View of the Loire

Highlight • Viewpoint

When you leave Nantes by the estuary, you have the impression of a coastal Japanese city. The landscape then gives way to nature, punctuated with works from the trip to Nantes and enhancements of the landscape heritage.

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